Epic Aussie Adventure, Day 2

Highlight of the last 24 hours:

High Fiving a baby turtle who just emerged from his nest, before watching him and his mates run to the sea and off to freedom! :o)

Todays Travelling Track:

Panic at the Disco- Northern Downpour

Soooooo, I know you're all on the edge of your seats awaiting this next installment of The Epic Aussie Adventure™ so I won't be keeping you a minute longer. In fact today I'm braving great beasts (mozzies) and trecherous conditions (no lights) to come to you at all as the laptop was starting to die so I'm sitting outside next to a power point! Anyways, we've had a couple of negative realisations since my previous installment.

1. Petrol is expensive and Turk is thirsty. We've probably spent 200 dollars on drinks for him already.

2. Turk has a few holes in him. We learnt this during a massive rainstorm and had to cover him with a tarp in order for us to spend the night dry. Today we've bought sealing stuff and filled in most of the holes. Unfortunautely a lot of the leaking was coming from one of the sliding doors, which is currently jammed shut because the handle is broken so we couldnt do much about that.

3. The cable attached to the lever which opens the petrol tank has snapped, we had to jimmy open the cover with a knife to fill up.

Thats about it for the negatives and not too bad for a 19-year-old van, but watch this space. Whenever I buy 2nd hand cars I always think of the father in Matilda and wonder what dodgy tricks mechanics have pulled to make vehicles run perfectly for the first 200ks or so and then suddenly all these glaring flaws show up. At least i don't think anyone put sawdust in Turk's engine.

Best moments of the last 24 hours-

1. Mon Repos Turtle Rookery. For the low low price of 10 dollars we were priviledged to watch a whole nest of baby turtles hatch, help them find their way to the waters edge using torches (they navigate against the light on the horizon, but get sidetracked nowadays by bright lights from nearby towns and often get lost) and then watched a MASSIVE female turtle digging a nest and laying her eggs. Probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen and the little turtles were SO cute. Just like squirt!

2.Learning that the baby turtles were embarking on their own epic backpacking adventure. Aparently most just ride the waves wherever they take them and eventually travel all the way to South America. They chill out there for a few years until they're ready to return home to Australia and start their own families. Me and The BF think they are the world's original travellers and hippies. Far out dude....

3. Finding an awesome free camping spot last night whilst it was pooring with rain and getting a really really good night's sleep.

4. see today's "Turk Meets..."

5. Making it to Rockhampton, and celebrating being in the beef capital of Australia by buying and cooking some amazing steaks!

Tomorrow the plan is to visit a crocodile farm, ignore my multiple mozzie bites, and hold an intervention for turk regarding his drink problems. More to come, watch this space....

Turk Visits...Mystery Craters: A truely unique rock formation (episode 2)

We were lured off of the main road by a sign advertising these mystery craters, when we saw what looked like a makeshift themepark in someones back yard (with an admission price) we decided against it....